OTC Annual Dinner Meeting Features Raevyn Rogers
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Volume 84 | January 2018 Download a PDF of this newsletter here! OTC Annual Dinner Meeting Features Raevyn Rogers The annual Oregon Track Club Dinner and Business Meeting will be held Tuesday, February 13 in the Club Room at Autzen Stadium. Doors open at 5:00 p.m. OTC will host a buffet dinner starting at 5:30 p.m. A brief business meeting will follow the dinner. Raevyn Rogers will be the guest speaker. She was recently honored with the Bowerman Award as top female collegiate athlete in the sport of NCAA track & field. Rogers is a six-time NCAA champion and eight-time all-American for the Ducks. She joined the professional track and field ranks in 2017. Rogers, a Houston, Texas native, Raevyn Rogers also won three PAC 12 titles during her UO career. She dominated the collegiate women’s 800 meters during her three years at Oregon. Rogers also captured titles as a member of the 4 x 400 relay team. To renew your regular Rogers holds the collegiate women’s record in the 800 meters with a time of 1:59:10. membership, She was a member of the 4 x 400 UO crew that set the current event record with a click below. time of 3:23:13. All current (2018) OTC adult members are invited to attend the dinner and meeting. Members will receive an email invitation by January 27th with an easy RSVP reply REGULAR process. The dinner portion of the evening is limited to the first 330 members who respond to the RSVP by February 8th. To renew your The business meeting will include the election of the Board of Directors, 2018 budget business approval, the Reske and Brathwaite Award presentations and updates on the UO track membership, and field program and OTC Elite programs. click below. Vin Lananna, USATF and TrackTown USA president, and Michael Reilly, TrackTown USA CEO, will give progress reports on what’s ahead in 2018 for TrackTown and BUSINESS Hayward Field. A New Look for the OTC Newsletter As you can tell, your OTC newsletter reading experience has changed with this issue of OnTrack. Thank you, OTC is pleased to announce that the newsletter is now a Jim Murez! true e-newsletter. All the content is viewable in the email you receive, no more link to the newsletter posted on the Jim Murez has retired as OTC website. OTC newsletter editor. The Club wants to thank This new email format will allow easier, more direct Jim for taking on this access to the newsletter articles. It will also allow active demanding volunteer job and doing such an hyperlinks embedded in articles so you have access to excellent job. related material on the Internet. It has been challenging to produce an eight to The change provides enhanced opportunities to integrate 12-page newsletter each month while Club news with the OTC social media accounts. balancing a full time job and family responsibilities. This new format is mobile device friendly as well as readable on a lap top or desk top computer. Murez took over as editor in December 2014 and has maintained the newsletter quality and Let us know what you think of this newsletter change by interesting content during his tenure sending your thoughts to [email protected]. overseeing production. A reminder that printed copies of the newsletter will no The good news is Murez will remain active in longer be mailed to readers. This money saving change the Club. He is currently a member of the was announced in the December issue of the newsletter. OTC Board of Directors. Those who are unable to receive the newsletter via email or need to have a hardcopy version mailed to them for Long time OTC member Phil Sutton has whatever reason can contact the OTC office at (541) 343- taken over as editor beginning with the 7247 or email [email protected]. January issue. Rogers Wins Top Award Raevyn Rogers recently won the Bowerman Award as the top female collegiate athlete in the sport of NCAA track & field. Rogers, a six-time NCAA champion and eight-time All-American for the Ducks, recently joined the professional ranks after her junior UO season. Other two finalists for the award were Arizona State's Maggie Ewen and Georgia's Keturah Orji. Out of the Blocks: Happy New Year! by Kevin Marbury, OTC president I hope that your holiday season was filled with fun, family, and love and that each of you has had a chance to rest, relax and recharge. This is a time of excitement as we anticipate what the new year will bring. Many of us are motivated by New Year’s resolutions and are trying to get off to a great start. As a sprinter, I can especially appreciate the importance of a great start. I know that if I get out strong, I am going to have a chance to win the race. At the same time, if I get left in the blocks, my chance to Kevin Marbury be successful significantly decreases. Likewise, the new year will present many exciting activities, events and opportunities in which you can be involved with the OTC. If you’re a runner, we have a wonderful slate of road, track and field activities for which you can train and compete. We’ll offer opportunities that range from All Comers meets to the Hayward Classic and Butte to Butte, to name a few. If you want to watch the best in the world, the Pre Classic is an event you don’t want to miss. Of course, if you want to get even closer to the action, we’re always looking for volunteers at these events as well as many of the other events we offer. Behind the scenes, the Board has been working to identify ways to be more effective in delivering opportunities for the community. We’ve had a series of meetings examining our organization structure while trying to strategically position the OTC for future sustainable successes. We’ve generated a great start with our Board discussions and should be able to present some exciting concepts in the near future! Another start I am excited to announce concerns the monthly newsletter you are currently reading. Phil Sutton has agreed to take on the job as editor of the newsletter. Phil has been working with the editorial crew for a while now so he was destined to get off to a great start. However, Phil’s start wasn’t out of the blocks. Instead, he got a flying start after a great relay leg by outgoing editor Jim Murez. Jim is stepping away to spend more time with his family. All of us in the OTC are very grateful for the work Jim did as editor of the newsletter. I am especially indebted to Jim for his patience and encouragement as I often struggled to get him my article anywhere near the deadline! Thanks for everything, Jim! As you can see there’s a lot going on as we leave the blocks and spring into 2018. I hope to see you in an adjoining lane so you can help us to get this year off to a great start! Vin’s Track Town: 2018 Promises To Be A Great Year for TrackTown by Vin Lananna As we enter the New Year, I can’t help but look ahead with great anticipation for yet another outstanding season of world-class track and field in the TrackTown USA community. Vin Lananna Besides hosting the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Outdoor Track & Field Championships for the sixth consecutive year, historic Hayward Field will be the site of the 44th annual Prefontaine Classic, the OSAA State High School Championships, the UO Twilight Vin Lananna is Meet, and the Pepsi Team Invitational. the Associate Athletic Director In addition, three of our most popular programs return in 2018: at the University The first TrackTown Tuesday will be held on Jan. 9 at the Downtown Athletic th of Oregon, Club, marking the 12 season of connecting the sport of track and field with the President of local community. TrackTown USA TrackTown Fitness – which is free and open to all – begins on Sunday, Jan. and President of 21 at Hayward Field. The 8 a.m. gatherings serve as a perfect 14-week build-up USATF. to the Eugene Marathon events on April 27-29. The highly acclaimed TrackTown Youth League presented by Providence Sports Medicine returns for a fifth straight year, with the championships scheduled to be held shortly after the end of competition on the final day of the NCAA meet. All of these initiatives continue to grow in both numbers and importance in large part due to the unwavering support of the many volunteers and officials at the Oregon Track Club. I can’t thank you enough for all of your hard work and dedication in helping us enhance and celebrate our sport as we move closer to the 2021 IAAF World Championships! Speaking of which, a few weeks ago, we launched the inaugural edition of the TrackTown USA Newsletter, an exciting new project which will provide vital news and information on Oregon21 in the lead-up to that once-in-a-lifetime event. To join our mailing list, sign up at gotracktownusa.com. We’re also pleased to announce the addition of three newcomers to OTC Elite, the outstanding professional training group which has been based in the Eugene-Springfield community since 2006. They are former UO standout Luke Puskedra (marathon), Virginia Tech alum Hanna Green (middle distance) and BYU alum Shea Collinsworth (middle distance).